Green Lantern Batman woke up and couldn't quite believe what he was seeing—a whole squad of Batmen.
Of course, he was one of the special ones. Green Lantern Batman had been contaminated, too, but the problem was that he'd been contaminated too young. The contamination affected his mind, and ultimately, the cruel acts he committed shaped his personality. It could be said that even if the contamination were removed now, his vile disposition wouldn't change back.
Given that, he should be completely uncooperative, standing in opposition to everyone, and making life difficult for them all.
Unfortunately, someone had already taken on that role.
"What's with the two tentacles behind you?" Batman inspected Little Bruce and asked.
"Mind your own business," Little Bruce replied.
Batman was taken aback. Great, another rebellious teenager—the world really was on the brink of being destroyed by teenagers.
"Don't call them tentacles," Helen reminded, "They have names, what are they? Tati and Gian?"
"Only someone with a brain the size of a walnut could never remember their names. The ones on duty today are Lapture and Luna."
"Enough," Barry couldn't help but complain, "you have over six thousand tentacles, two on duty each day, who could possibly keep track?"
Batman really wanted to say that, rather than what these tentacles were called, wasn't the fact that there were six thousand of them more astonishing? Where did Batman get all these tentacles from?
"Speaking of which," Harley turned to Little Bruce and asked, "What's this about the Evil God? You said it wasn't Nyarlathotep who first tempted you, so who was it?"
Little Bruce shook his head and said, "I don't know, but if Alfred didn't see it wrong, then while I was still in my mother's womb, she was summoned, and it was actually switching my faith to Nya that saved me."
"From the start, I thought you had an awful temper," Barry muttered under his breath, "Just like a lunatic."
Little Bruce didn't rebut this point; he just earnestly said, "That damned insurance investigator, I have to say he was moonlighting. He was actually a damned juvenile delinquent."
"Aren't you?"
"I told you I've committed no crime," Little Bruce said impatiently, "Listen to me, the guy might have been unprofessional and annoying, but he really did unearth some clues."
"What did he find?"
"Martha often went to church to pray," Little Bruce said, "She'd go to the cathedral on important days, but usually, it was the community church."
Batman immediately pricked up his ears—anything related to Martha was of great concern to him.
"The community church is maintained by contributions from all the residents living in the community," Little Bruce recalled, "According to the nuns in the community primary school I attended, about a year before I was born, around the time when Martha became pregnant, a lightning strike one night collapsed the church, so it had to be repaired."
"A lightning strike collapsed the church?" Batwoman expressed her skepticism, "If I remember correctly, Wayne Manor is situated in Gotham's Upper city area, which is full of wealthy people. How could a church funded by such people be destroyed by lightning?"
"That's exactly the issue. Jerome uncovered this incident, and he believed that the contamination started from around that time, which led him to suspect me."
Harley gasped and said, "Does he know you're the persona behind Gotham's catastrophe?"
"I'll say it again, it wasn't a catastrophe. If I didn't use Nya's power to clear the pollution in Gotham City, this damn city wouldn't improve anyway."
"It's just that the cleanup made a bit of a mess, the transformation process was a bit too vigorous, causing some seriously contaminated criminals to die, and this damn insurance investigator, for his damn company's sake, didn't want to make any damn pay-outs, wished he could just barge into my house."
Little Bruce was practically grinding his teeth in anger, but he took a deep breath and continued, "He found problems in the church's rebuilding process and my mother who often went there to pray. He suspected my mother had been contaminated and naturally turned his suspicions on me."
At the mention of the word "contamination," all the Batmen perked up their ears. They had initially thought Little Bruce was different from them, on the side of the Bat Tyrant Dragon and the Batmonster Vehicle—despite the accident that made Batman no longer Batman, his mind was still sane. He had even become healthier than the other Batmen due to some accident that resolved his long-standing issues.
The Bat Tyrant Dragon and the Batmonster Vehicle were like this. The Bat Tyrant Dragon became more clinging to life and thus, more akin to a normal human after experiencing a brush with death and its terrified state.
Whereas the Batmonster Vehicle had accomplished all he could do. He perfectly saved the entire world, providing for the human race.
Only, in the end, humanity chose freedom and didn't need his sustenance; that was beyond his control. He had fulfilled his ideals and, in the process of saving others, he completed his own salvation, achieving his greatest value. Thus in the end, he could leave with Bruce without any regrets.
Whereas the other Batmen, most of whom were victims of conspiracies, mostly left the stage amidst tragedy and regret. Although they eventually reached a not-too-bad conclusion, most of the tragedies that had already happened were irreversible.
Although Little Bruce seemed more like the latter on the surface, it was obvious he was lucid, so everyone thought he was actually the former, not crazy, just a little peculiar in breed.
But now, there seemed to be another possibility, that he was supposed to be contaminated but due to some incident, the plot of the person behind the scenes had failed, and that incident had made him what he was now.
"Tell me more about the contamination," Batman said.
"Things started getting weird after the community church was rebuilt," Little Bruce recalled. "Alfred remembered that the community's best psychiatrist was fully booked every day, whereas before, they might only have had two appointments a week."
"Did anyone go crazy?"
"A lot of people were in poor mental health, including my mother. The doctor suspected she had prenatal depression, but Alfred said that the check-ups at the central hospital showed no hormone issues, the fetus was normal, and there were no environmental factors to cause Martha concern or anxiety."
"To comfort Martha, Thomas often accompanied her to pray, and once Alfred overheard Thomas muttering strange things Martha said during her prayers... "
"What strange things?"
"Blood," Little Bruce answered. "Just that one word. Jerome and I didn't understand what it meant."
Batman and Batwoman exchanged a look. They immediately thought of the dark red liquid that had been extracted from the metal, the figure in the fog had also called it blood.
"Wait a minute, why does this sound familiar?" White Can suddenly said with a hint of surprise. He turned to Mechanical Batman and said, "If a monster replaced Alfred and contaminated Batman, could a monster have replaced the priest and contaminated Martha?"
Harley could see Little Bruce's complexion change, so she asked, "Has anyone seen that priest who Martha always prayed to? Given his age, he shouldn't be retired, right?"
Little Bruce shook his head and said, "This is an important clue. I'll look into it."
"I suggest you don't go, and let Jerome handle it," Batman suddenly said. "If someone tried to contaminate you before you were even born and you were not contaminated due to an accident, he will definitely be watching you, so you can't show yourself easily."
"I'm not going to ask for his help," Little Bruce raised his voice. "Last time he got a candle from who-knows-where and burned off one of my tentacles. It hurt a lot!"
"Sounds very much like a knight of justice," Barry chimed in softly. "Braving all difficulties to find the artifact and defeat the Big Devil and such."
"Shut up, Barry!"
"What are you all talking about?" Green Lantern Batman couldn't help but interrupt. "What contamination?"
When everyone's gaze focused on him, Green Lantern Batman couldn't help feeling tense. So many Batmen, even if some looked odd, were still Batmen, and their scrutiny was intimidating.
"I don't think I've been contaminated," Green Lantern Batman said. "I just killed some criminals. They deserved to die."
"No one said they didn't," Lightning Batman said. "But you'd better take that ring off your finger before you speak."
"What? No..."
Bang!
Doomsday Batman leapt onto Green Lantern Batman, pinning him down firmly. Without the green lantern energy, Green Lantern Batman couldn't break free. Batwoman stepped forward, attempting to remove the ring from his hand.
But after examining it for a while, they found that it had completely fused with the bone of Green Lantern Batman's finger, even the nerves were intertwined. Batwoman pulled hard, and Green Lantern Batman let out a scream.
Peter came up, having just analyzed the helmet, then discovered that the energy circuitry of the ring was nearly identical to that of the helmet, meaning they still needed to counter the energy to eliminate the core.
The required energy was no small amount, Wonder Woman had exhausted all her divine power just to barely neutralize the core inside the helmet, and clearly, there wasn't another Wonder Woman here...
Aisha stepped forward and said, "Thanks to there being so many Batmen, burp."
Her eyes flashed with intense Yellow Light, and the Yellow Torch Energy instantly melted the defenses of the Green Lantern Ring and easily followed the energy circuitry to the core.
However, because the Yellow Torch Energy and the Green Lantern Energy were mutually reinforcing and opposing, Aisha used her own fear energy to envelop the core and extract it.
At first, when the Yellow Light was dense, people couldn't make out what the core was; it appeared only as a sphere, emitting an ominous glow.
But as Aisha carefully withdrew her energy, what appeared before them was an egg, with a large mouth full of fangs on it, at the moment gaping in a Mad Laugh.